Sherlock Holmes was a really good movie. It helps that I’m a fan of Robert Downey and ‘bad good guys’ that he plays (and happens to be off camera). I’m also happy to see that Guy Richie (Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) might be back on his A-game now that he’s ditched Madonna.
Film aside, one of my favorite parts was the closing credits, done by Prologue Films. They were comprised of sort cuts from the movie that transitioned into beautiful sketches on parchment paper, complete with stains, smudges and ink blotches.
Simply gorgeous.







Check the video on YouTube.

Delayed post – the boys over at Analogue launched this site a few months ago for the artist Ben Wisch.
Simple, elegant and immersive.
As usual.
Nice work guys.

Randal: “There was something else going on in Jedi. I never noticed it ’til today. They build another Death Star, Right?”
Dante: “Yeah.”
Randal: “Now, the first one was completed and fully operational before the rebels destroyed it.”
Dante: “Luke blew it up. Give credit where credit’s due.”
Randal: “And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.”
Dante: “Compliments of Lando Calrissian.”
Randal: “Something just never sat right with me that second time around. I could never put my finger on it, but something just wasn’t right.”
Dante: “And you figured it out.”
Randal: “The first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army. The only people on board were Storm troopers, Dignitaries, Imperialists.”
Dante: “Basically.”
Randal: “So when they blew it up, no problem. Evil’s punished.”
Dante: “And the second time around?”
Randal: “The second time around it wasn’t even done behind built yet. It was still under construction.”
Dante: “So?”
Randal: “So, a construction job of that magnitude would require a hell of lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I’ll bet they brought independent contractors in on that thing. Plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers–”
Dante: “Not just Imperialists. Is that what you’re getting at?”
Randal: “Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly, they’d hire anybody that could do the job. You think the average Storm Trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All’s they know is killing and white uniforms.”
Dante: “Alright, so, they bring in independent contractors. Why are you so upset at it’s destruction.”
Randal: “All those innocent contractors brought in to do the job are killed, casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. Alright, look, you a roofer. Some juicy government contract comes your way. You got a wife and kids, the two-story in suburbia. This is a government contract which means all sorts of benefits. Along come these left-wing militants who blast everything within a three-mile radius with their lasers. You didn’t ask for that; you had no personal politics. You’re just trying to scrape out a living.”
from Clerks

From ReadWriteWeb:

Yesterday, Palm released an update of the Pre software, webOS. While most of the reporting surrounding the new OS involved the important update which brings paid applications to the Pre’s App Catalog, another under-reported feature is actually just as (if not more) important. The Pre now lets you download over-the-air from Amazon’s MP3 Store.

Let’s hope Jon Rubenstein stops acting like a douchebag with the Pre-masquerading-as-an-iPod trickery with iTunes.
A clever man once said, if you don’t like the rules of the game, change the game.
While I understand the convenience of being able to sync your Palm Pre with iTunes, the reason the Pre is a great product is for all the ways it’s different than the iPhone.

Little belated shout out to my friend Promila on her site, Still Life.
She’s quite the curator of design and art.

Talk about simplicity with a grid. The website for A24 is absolutely beautiful.
found via Navistd

It seems like every successful person I learn about now fits into the pattern that Malcolm Gladwell highlights in his book, Outliers, which is:
timing + talent + insane amounts of practice = rich & successful
It’s like when you buy a car, and then you see that model everywhere you go. I see the outliers pattern everywhere since reading that book.
And so it is after having just watched It Might Get Loud down at the Sunshine Theatre on Houston Street. I know Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White are extremely talented musicians, what I didn’t realize (but should have guessed) is that they also all practiced their asses off for years before making it big.
Like the examples Gladwell gives in Outliers, Page, The Edge and White were lucky enough to have gotten an early start to playing guitar. Gladwell talks about the magical 10,000 hours of practice one needs to get order to get to that ‘next level’ of success in a particular field/trade.
I haven’t done the math, but I’d be willing to put money down that these 3 musicians all hit that number early one in their lives.
Practice and book references aside, It Might Get Loud was awesome. I was fairly confident it was going to be. I couldn’t picture these 3 giants (ok, Jack White isn’t a giant yet, give him a little time) letting me down.
My favorite part in the film was when Jimmy Page starts playing the guitar on Whole Lotta Love (I think?) and the camera turns to White and Edge who both look like little kids seeing their favorite superhero in real life – eyes as big as their head with smiles from ear to ear.
Gave me chills and I wasn’t even there.

unibody MacBook Pro, 2008

Nokia Booklet 3G, 2009

I’ve had this post waiting to be written for a few months now. Luckily, the time that has elapsed since the articles I’m referencing have been written haven’t made this post any less relevant. Note that the Wired article I reference has since been updated by their editor due to a lot of reader feedback.
I understand when you’re writing for the media, it’s temping to inject your headlines and article titles with a lot of hyperbole. Depending on who your employer is, many times it gets you more hits (and more money).
I came across this article on Wired.com back in February, Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone.
Pretty bold title …was it true? The writer, Brian Chen cites out-of-whack pricing plans, high and complex standards of users and lack of a TV tuner as the larger hurdles Apple is up against.
Fair enough. I am well aware that Japan has pioneered in many technology markets (but not necessarily innovated) and are far ahead of us in many respects.
But a few months later I came across this article at Electronista, iPhone dominates Japanese smartphone market.
They write:

The iPhone is currently the best-selling smartphone in Japan, at least at retail, according to a recent survey. Gathered by research firm BCN, data from 2,300 stores shows the 8GB iPhone 3G as the most popular smartphone, followed by its 16GB sibling.

and:

The Japanese iPhone is carried by Softbank, which is said to have adjusted its plans to make the product cheaper in terms of fees and hardware. The iPhone may also be benefiting from a relatively static local market, which has little incentive to develop new features beyond items like better cameras, sharper displays and mobile TV.

Now the Wired article was written 26 Feb 2009, and the Electronista article was written on 3 Jul 2009. What I can surmise from these two articles is either:
A) Brian Chen at Wired.com is full of shit and the Japanese don’t hate the iPhone
or
B) Consumer opinion of the iPhone has changed dramatically in the 5 months since the Wired article was written due to Softbank’s ‘adjustments’ mentioned in the Electronista article. Consumer opinion changed so much so that they went uout and bought enough iPhones to make it the #1 smartphone in Japan.
If B) is the case, that’s a pretty impressive 360 degree turn in consumer opinion.
Whatever the case may be, always try be well-informed on news – be it political, technological, social or artistic.

I came across a post (what blog, I can’t remember) about a collaborative duo called Sing Statistics. Here is the cover of their new book, We Are the Friction:

The cover of their book immediately brought to mind one of my favorite contemporary designers, Nicolas Felton, who has a recognizable all-caps, stacked-type style to his work (work that is predominately focused on statistics and data visualizations).
This is his autobiographic Annual Report for 2007:

Without speaking with Sing Statistics, I have no way to determine if they’re aware of Felton’s work. My goal is also not to call out Sing as copycats (And Felton doesn’t own the copyright on thin-condensed-all-caps-stacked-type).
The point of this post is more to educate and acknowledge the continuum on which we all work – no matter what medium it is. Influence is inevitable and important to the growth of artists and designers.
I find this urge to educate people on influences and origins in music as well, especially to younger generations who are unaware of baselines, riffs, remixes and covers based on songs that came before their time. I’m particularly amazed at ‘hardcore’ hip hop fans who have no idea the amount of sampling there has been of James Brown and much of the 60’s Motown generation.

For the last 4 days I’ve been in Chicago for my company’s (Roundarch) annual summer event. Since my flight back to NYC wasn’t until Sunday, I decided to visit the the Art Institute of Chicago. Having not been there before I wanted to see how well their claim of ‘being one of the largest collections of Impressionist artwork’ held up.
Truth be told, their collection is amazing, but being the weirdo I am, I became distracted with an object I kept seeing in various rooms of the museum:



As I took a closer look at the device, I realized it was used for tracking humidity and temperature over a large span of time using a needle to register fluctuations on a large spool of paper like a seismometer (for tracking earthquake activity).
How friggin cool.
I did some quick digging and found the company who makes these hygrothermographs, Oakion.

Last week Michael Surtees wrote a post on how he organizes his iPhone home screen.
It wasn’t long after I bought my iPhone that I too started to organize my home screen based on my usage patterns. Over the last year and half my usage patterns have shifted slightly as new applications have become available but overall I’ve remained fairly consistent (see my original post from July 2008 for reference).
One of the biggest changes I made was getting rid of most of the webpage links from my home screen(s) and putting them in my bookmarks list within Safari. It used to be a novelty to have all these sparkly little webpage icons on my screen, but as I’ve acquired more and more apps, I’ve become more utilitarian and conservative with what I deem worthy of a spot on my home screen.
So In response to Surtees, I’ve mapped my iPhone space. Unlike Surtees, I organize icons in orbits, with the bottom left-hand corner being the nucleus and where my ‘clicking thumb’ sits (I write right-handed but I do a lot of things with my left hand). Similar to him though, I’m less strict with my second and third home screens.

Art tends not only to discover the truth but to exaggerate and finally distort it. And, maybe in this distortion lies the essence of art.

• Matthew Nowicki
  via NOTCOT

RAY
Boy, I’ve gotta get some sleep. I’m dying.
PETER
You don’t look good.
RAY
I don’t?
PETER
You’ve looked better. You didn’t used to look like this.
– Ghostbusters